MLB Pipeline Re-Ranks Top Farm Systems
By Jason Burke
After this week’s trade deadline, MLB Pipeline has re-ranked the top farm systems in baseball for their annual mid-season list.
It should come as no surprise that the New York Yankees, who were outside of the top ten to begin the year, made the jump all the way to number two after acquiring some of their trade partner’s top prospects over the last week or so while the Milwaukee Brewers claim the top spot (up from 9th) after adding Phil Bickford, Lewis Brinson and Luis Ortiz. All three new additions rank within the top 65 minor league players according to Pipeline, and make up three of the Brewer’s top six prospects overall. That’s a lot of top tier talent.
The Houston Astros made a similar jump up the rankings from tenth to third, but their jump is a little more complicated. After trading away a number of top prospects, some of which make up the Brewers current depth as well as Mark Appel and Vincent Velasquez to Philadelphia last offseason, they remained quiet this trade deadline. Whether that’s because they were a little gun shy due to missing on some of their recent acquisitions, or the week the big league team had leading up to the deadline, the fact remains that the only real move they made was to trade away Scott Feldman.
Due to Houston’s inaction and the trades made by some of the top teams to start the season in Los Angeles and Texas, along with some of the Astros top prospects being in the big leagues but not accumulating enough at-bats or innings pitched thus far to remove their names from the prospect list, the Astros remain one of the top farm systems in baseball.
Start clicking around to learn a little more about some of each of the top system’s in baseball and which players to keep an eye out for. As an added bonus, I also provide the best name in each of these team’s top 30. There are some doozies.
Next: Lots of Talent a Year or Two Away